Amazon to open its first-ever physical book store in Seattle

Dated: November 04, 2015

Two decades after it started selling books online, Amazon opens a shopping center storefront with books for sale on actual shelves. The brick-and-mortar store, Amazon Books, is a physical extension of Amazon.com with books being selected based on customer ratings and pre-orders on Amazon.com.

Amazon is betting that the troves of data it generates from shopping patterns on its website will give it advantages in its retail location that other bookstores can’t match. It will use data to pick titles that will most appeal to Seattle shoppers. But it will also include books that get the highest ratings from its customers, including little-known titles. The store will also include such categories as “Most Wished-For Cookbooks.” Another section features “Award Winners, 4.5 Stars & Above, Age 6-12.”

Amazon’s customers help select books for the store in other ways as well. The new store includes, for example, “Bald, Fat & Crazy: How I Beat Cancer While Pregnant with One Daughter and Adopting Another” by Stephanie Hosford, a title that ranks 622,923 in books sold on Amazon.

The store will also have an option to test drive Amazon's devices such as Kindle, Echo, Fire TV and Fire Tablet.

Amazon Books, which is located in Seattle's University Village, will be open every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, the company said.
sale on actual shelves. The brick-and-mortar store, Amazon Books, is a physical extension of Amazon.com with books being selected based on customer ratings and pre-orders on Amazon.com.